The Dictionary of American Slang, Fourth Edition by Barbara Ann Kipfer, PhD. and Robert L. Chapman, Ph.D.Copyright (C) 2007 by HarperCollins Publishers.Cite This Source

Idioms and Phrases with money talks

money talks

Wealth has great influence, as in Big contributors to campaigns are generally rewarded with important posts—in politics money talks. The idea behind this idiom was stated by Euripides in the fifth century b.c., and some 2,000 years later Erasmus spoke of “the talking power of money” (Adagia, 1532). The precise current locution, however, only began to be used about 1900.